Mommin' It Up!

January 14, 2011January 14, 2011

Amazingly Fun Preschool Games from the Wonder Forge

I come from a family of board-game lovers. As a kid, I ate up the old-school Memory and Sorry games; as an adult, I love Yahtzee and all things Trivial Pursuit.

In light of this, I have an astonishing confession to make: I have thrown away more than one preschool board game of Joshua’s when he was little. Because, they were just TORTURE to play. Too long, too complicated, and ultimately just more stressful than fun!

So, when Sophie started expressing an interest in playing games, I was hesitant. But, then, one day on a play date at Cortney’s, she fell in love with this game:

More accurately, she fell in love with it and then batted her long eyelashes and convinced Cortney to let her “borrow” it (which means we kept it and I bought Cortney’s boys a new one!). But that ended up working out really well, because it is FUN to play! Every member of our family (well, not the baby) really enjoys playing it. It is SO age-appropriate for Sophie, but still fun for the rest of us. Turns out, Cortney had received this game to review from the Wonder Forge, the genius creators of said game, and all the “I can do that!” games, and so she passed on my info to them and soon, a box of MORE wonderful games arrived at my door! In the past week, we have had a great time playing with them as well!

Sophie really loo-oo-ooves this “What’s in the Cat’s Hat?” game as well! It’s a fun game that combines sensory activities and guessing and careful thinking and reasoning, even! It’s another one that our family enjoys, and it is really simple to learn, set up, clean up, and start playing. Also, it doesn’t take long to play which means you can play several times in a row and still have time to get on with the rest of your life. 🙂

Another game we received and have really enjoyed is the Curious George Matching Game:

This is one of my favorites because matching games were my forte as a child. I pretty much dominated in the matching game arena. 🙂 Sophie, Joshua, and I all love playing this together. There are a LOT of cards though, so I suggest breaking them up into two sets if you don’t have a lot of time to play. Sophie loves the TV show on PBS so she has a lot of fun finding matches of all her favorite folks, from the Man in the Yellow Hat to Chef Pasketti and Gnocchi that cat!

Finally, another one that’s really fun to play is the Discovery Garden.

It’s basically identical to the Curious George Beach Discovery game that Sophie first fell in love with, but with a garden instead of a beach. There are lots of critters and tools to find – great learning for Sophie since her mama has not exactly exposed her to gardening much. 🙂 As a matter of fact, Sophie is bugging me to play this RIGHT NOW – so I gotta go – but go check out all the great I Can Do That! games from the Wonder Forge (you can buy them on Amazon) and bring some of this great, age-appropriate fun for your preschooler into your home – it will be fun for ALL of you, I promise!

________________

The Wonder Forge sent me three games to review. This post and the opinions expressed in it are all my own.

January 13, 2011January 12, 2011

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

My little shy, anti-social Sophie has really started to blossom in the last couple of months. She’s really starting to be more social in a lot of ways, and one of those ways is that she l-o-v-e-s the other kids in her class at preschool. But she especially big puffy hearts one kid in particular, and his name is Julio.

When Sophie started this particular preschool right after Thanksgiving, I was worried about her adjustment, but she got comfortable with the other kids right away. She mentioned Julio’s name within the first couple of days. At first I was like “Julio? Really?” – I thought maybe I was misunderstanding her. But I asked her teacher, and sure enough – there was a boy in her class named Julio. By the end of the week she had also mentioned a little girl named Ashley. By the end of the second week, I knew the name of every kid in her class (there are 12 including her). She was excited to tell me about all her new friends, but Julio’s name is one she mentions without fail. When I am dropping her off and she sees him walking down the sidewalk she gets so excited and yells, “Here comes Julio!” or “Look, Julio’s here!”

One day before Christmas when I went to drop Sophie off, I saw Julio’s mom dropping him off, and I tried to tell her how much Sophie luuurves Julio. But, I discovered there is a bit of a language barrier: her response to me was to smile and nod and say “It’s cold!” (Which it was.) Dangit, I am really regretting that French minor I had in college! Spanish would apparently have been much more effective!

A couple of days later when I went to pick Sophie up, the class was running a little late so they had me come in the room (usually they just throw the kids out the door at you). As I was getting Sophie’s coat on, Julio kept saying “Bye So-PHIE, bye So-PHIE!” very energetically. One of Sophie’s teachers smiled and said, “He doesn’t say much in English, so that means something right there.”

So apparently Sophie and Julio are members of the Mutual Admiration Society.

Sophie thanks Jesus for Julio every night at bedtime (usually either Ashley or another classmate, Dominic, also gets a shout-out to the big JC as well.) She can now write his name, which along with her teacher’s name and Ashley’s name, is her favorite thing to write.

And every day after school, when I ask her who she played with at school, she yells “WHO-LEE-OH!” before I can even finish the question.

I’m super-excited that Sophie has made such good friends at school, and I think it’s just a LITTLE bit cute that her BFF is a little boy who speaks even less English than she does.

Also super-excited that it ties in so perfectly with a Paul Simon song. I mean, really! It’s Sophie and Julio down by the schoolyard, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

January 11, 2011January 11, 2011

The Miracle Blanket – it’s not just a clever name!

One of the very first reviews I ever wrote was on the Miracle Blanket; I wrote it just because I loved the product and wanted to share. We would not have survived Sophie’s infanthood with out it! Well, four years later, I have to say, the Miracle Blanket is STILL miraculous. We have other swaddlers that I like, but the Miracle Blanket wins the award for best ALL-AROUND. Here’s why I STILL love it!

The arm flaps keep baby’s arms secure at his or her side – just like in ye olde womb!
The pouch for the legs makes it really easy to pop the baby’s legs out of the swaddle so you can secure the baby in a swing or bouncy seat but keep the rest of the body swaddled.
It’s really simple to use, with no hooks, ties, or velcro.
It keeps my baby calm and happy! See?

jonahmiracleblanket — he makes white with pink trim look manly!

I like this blanket so much that when they sent me one to review this time, and it was white and PINK, I didn’t even CARE, even though I was having a boy. Any Miracle Blanket it perfect in my book! My boy rocks his girly-colored Miracle Blanket and it keeps him calm, day or night! I swaddle him in it to nap and Bobby swaddles him up nice and tight in it before bed.

In my opinion, the Miracle Blanket is THE must-have item if you are having a baby, and the perfect gift for ever shower you ever go to. Seriously, I could not LOVE the Miracle Blanket any more! It really is amazing!